Egypt beat Senegal in the first leg of the African qualifying playoff for the 2022 World Cup and next Tuesday they will have to defend the 1-0 in Dakar to certify the passport to Qatar. This time Mohamed Salah beat Sadio Mané, his teammate at Liverpool, in this stellar tie and the pharaohs took revenge for the loss on penalties (0-0 and 4-2) in the final of the African Cup played on February 6.
If then there were no goals in the 120 minutes, today at the Cairo International Stadium barely four had elapsed when Egypt, led on the bench by the Portuguese Carlos Queiroz, opened the scoring. Amr Al Sulaya made a great pass looking for the back of the Senegalese defense, Salah controlled on the fly in a possible offside, he turned around and in the half turn he finished off the crossbar with the fortune that the ball hit Saliou Ciss and stayed in his goal.
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Mostafa Mohamed had a chance to make it 2-0 shortly after, but Egypt did not come back dangerously in this first half as Senegal took control of the game based on long possessions but also without clear arrivals, except in the minute 37, when Mané, in his first outstanding intervention, culminated a run through the center with a shot that narrowly missed him.
After the break, Mané’s figure grew larger while Salah came into play a little. Mohamed El Shenawi, Egyptian goalkeeper, took a chopped header from Liverpool’s ‘9’ already in the 49th minute.
Shortly after Mané starred in another outstanding individual play but Famara Dioedhou was unable to take advantage of his pass (53′). Senegal continued to insist on generating superiority on the left of their attack but Egypt, with a lot of experience in their ranks, contained their push and ended up taking a valuable victory in a balanced match that they must endorse on Tuesday in Dakar to certify their qualification for the 2022 World Cup.